


We Sewed the Day in Stitches

by jusrecht



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2073318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The respect he had for her did not stem from who she was, but what she was—the Tenth’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Sewed the Day in Stitches

When they officially met, each a stranger to the other beyond their name and physical appearance, all Gokudera could think was: this wasn’t a conversation suited for the occasion.

The sun shone too bright overhead, joyful and profuse in its felicitations to the celebrating couple. The orchestra played a light, merry tune which provided little cover for their voices, but Tsuna was smiling, handsome in a grey Armani suit, and Gokudera found it difficult to raise even the smallest objection. Engagement was meant to be a period of bliss and heady expectations, so he remained silent, calm, amenable as the Tenth continued speaking in his naturally soft voice and named him a ‘most trusted friend’.

Gokudera would have blushed, if not for their company. Any lingering prejudice notwithstanding, he had no trouble admitting to himself that Sasagawa Kyoko had always intimidated him a little. That The Tenth was in love with her was good enough a reason—he could not offend this girl, this _woman,_ he could not afford to disappoint the Tenth. To maintain this balance was part of his job, and while not nearly as vital as some others, it was important enough.

“I cannot do anything without him,” the Tenth said again with a sheepish smile and Gokudera blushed then. In a shimmering pink dress, Kyoko’s smile was a different sort, guarded with a touch of bemusement which came with the subject. The adjoining of her name and person seemed to cast her in a new light. In his eyes, she had never been anything but _she, her, the Tenth’s,_ a shapeless parade of pronouns. These were sufficient identifiers but poor interpreters.

Back then, he had had no need to understand.

A wife was different. A wife did not only bear her husband’s name, but also the weight of his burdens. When they shook hands, polite, a shade too cautious for comfort, Gokudera could feel that he was staring at a stranger.

This, he knew, must change.

 

–

 

ii.

The first time they were alone together, it was because some idiot—namely Yamamoto—screwed up in his job.

Protection details should have been _his_ responsibility, but the Tenth had made it clear on the day he had appointed Gokudera for the Consigliere post, that too many tasks yielded poor results. Even geniuses had their limit. He would have protested against this reasoning— _but it’s all for you, Tenth_ —except Tsuna had taken Gokudera’s hands and held them against his cheeks, voice solemn and earnest.

This is the most important thing I’ll ever do in my life, I have to do it right.

Yamamoto’s offer had come readily after an aimless pause. He had not hesitated; baseball and _Koshien_ were pretty vines of a golden past, cushioned by youth’s ignorance. The-future-which-shouldn’t-be had robbed him of all three, long shadow cast by memories and nightmares alike. At twenty-two, he had looked into Tsuna’s eyes and made his choice.

It was natural, convenient, and as far as duties went, Gokudera found no fault with this arrangement.

Until tonight.

 

–

 

iii.

She was used to running, that much he could tell; it was the impractical height of her heels which slowed her down so, and thus hindered their escape. Their harsh, rapid breathing shook against the silence as Gokudera listened, one ear pressed against the heavy door which barred their way out. The occasional sound of footsteps made the muscles on his neck tauten with dread; even the deadly gun between his clammy fingers provided little assurance, one against—how many had they been, twenty, thirty?

All he could think of was the Tenth, _the Tenth, fuck you, Yamamoto, if something happens to the Tenth–_

“Are they out there too?”

Kyoko’s voice was a tangled whisper, her words stitched together by the sheer power of curiosity alone. She was sitting on one of the steps, her shoes cast aside in case their hiding was exposed, in case she needed to run again.

It was then when Gokudera finally noticed that she was shaking.

“They won’t give up so fast,” he answered through gritted teeth, anger swelling thickly in his throat. A dinner. A fancy restaurant. A normal date—surely the Tenth deserved that much, but that fucking Yamamoto and his stupid mistake–

His priority had been to get Kyoko out of the bullets’ way, his position being the closest to hers. The Tenth, engaged in a polite conversation with the restaurant’s manager, had been a convenient target, but the initial attack had missed him by an arm’s length. Gokudera had only had enough time to confirm this before finding himself pushed toward the secured exit, arm tight around Kyoko’s stiff shoulders—only to discover the men guarding their escape route massacred.

He had not stopped to think. Twenty-five floors and two close combats later, they had reached the ground floor but no closer to safety. Gokudera considered his car, but most likely there was an ambush waiting in the basement and he still had no means of contact with his cell phone damaged during their hastened flight. The other obvious choice, this door, led to a back alley east of the building. For sure, speed and stealth would buy them freedom, but only in such case that their movement had not been anticipated and no one was waiting at either end of the alley.

Gokudera gritted his teeth. The night should have been a happy one.

“Is it always like this?”

Kyoko hid her fear, her frustration as best as she could, but the question tumbled out nevertheless. Gokudera regarded her from the corner of his eyes, considering its origin, and then the repercussions of an answer.

“Not always,” he said at last, a half lie. Try as they might, the disquiet was constant. Those who survived simply learned to ignore it, push it to the backmost of their mind, and try to get used to its ghostly presence—a reminder of mortality.

“I don’t know much,” Kyoko spoke again, her voice soft and apologetic, as if she must provide excuse for the situation. Gokudera knew as a matter of fact that the fault, should such be called, was not hers. The Tenth had been most insistent on that point: she was _not_ to know, the bad and ugly of their life, not while he could still spare her all the unhappiness caused by a future husband who hardly led a normal life.

Gokudera only questioned the wisdom in this decision in silence; an arrangement between husband and wife was not any concern of the Family Consigliere. His way of affairs was straightforward and mincing words did not come easily to him, but in front of her, bound by Tsuna’s order, Gokudera held his tongue. A noncommittal nod was safe enough, and then, he tried not to look at her in the eye.

Kyoko did not challenge his silence. She sat wordlessly, one hand cradling the heel of her left foot, eyes downcast. Neither of them spoke again until Gokudera felt himself scraping the base of his patience in the prolonged inaction, his heartbeat now even louder than the voice of prudence.

“Can you run?”

She looked up, first uncomprehending. Her smile, when it followed, was small, tremulous, a far call from the honest laugh she often shared with the Tenth. It was the effort itself which left more impression in him than he thought possible.

“Yes.”

Abandoning caution for a moment, Gokudera held out his hand.

 

.

 

Tsuna’s arms were tight around her, relief evident in every line on his face, every tier of his layered timbre as he whispered gratitude over and over again. Gokudera glimpsed the dull blankness of her face, and for one horrible moment thought that she would repulse the Tenth, after the incident and such scars it left on her.

It passed when she buried her face in his shoulder, fingers like claws on his back.

 

–

 

iv.

Every time his cell phone rang, Gokudera expected trouble.

He was always the first to know—his post demanded it so. Good news, one without darker undertones or malicious purpose, was as rare as a moment of respite in his life. At the end of each day, he closed his eyes to feel the slow dread haunting him still, tangible enough despite the exhaustion eating his limbs and flashes of the Tenth’s cautious optimism.

Adapt and overcome, Gokudera always told himself so. Any knot that troubled him would soon loosen, disperse, enough to join the mass of white noise at the back of his head. _Adapt and overcome._

It only took one phone call to return him to square one. The blood pounding in his head made such cacophony that he nearly rushed headlong into death, his foot stepping on the gas and refusing to budge as he raced his car down to the hospital. His sister would have slapped him, pounded sense into his head, but neither she nor the Tenth was here.

His fist found Yamamoto’s face as soon as he arrived. The pain exploding in his knuckles was a good balance against righteous anger, although justification was not what he sought. He heard a gasp, a feminine sound which betrayed disapproval from a passing nurse, but Yamamoto stood unmoving before the door, a guard, not a martyr.

“A bullet hit his left arm,” he said by way of explanation, his calm unshakable. Gokudera hated that composure, suspecting such quality for unconcern in his moment of fury, and his fingers itched to strike again.

“This is the third time,” he hissed, mind inevitably calculating so little distance between left arm, left part of the chest, the heart, the quick way to die. The difference of heaven and hell. It was all Yamamoto’s fault.

Finding no resistance in Yamamoto’s silence, he made his call to each Guardian and then dialled Sasagawa Kyoko’s number.

 

.

 

“He will wake up soon,” the doctor told them, eyes uneasy behind the glint of his fashionable glasses. Gokudera deciphered it as fear born out of _fear_ , not lies, and walked past the man into the sunlit room.

One look was never enough. He stared and stared, drinking in the sight of a most beloved face, its vivacity dimmed by unconsciousness and loss of blood. Relief and panic shunned each other, but he welcomed both for lack of any other choice and sat down, waiting; waiting was for the helpless and he _was_ helpless. Even the thought of revenge sickened him. No scale, no amount of revenge could ever equal the Tenth alive and smiling.

Yamamoto was never afraid to look at him, culpable and branded as he was. Gokudera had to make an effort to stare back whenever their eyes met. The uncomfortable weight he identified as guilt filled his stomach, a residue of his violent reaction earlier. The truth was however well Yamamoto did his job, a mind bent on revenge would not stop at all cost. This time it was an arm; there was no telling what it would be next.

Now armed with a name to point his finger at, Gokudera knew that he must persuade the Tenth to take action, The cessation was up to them, not the other Family—but even this resolve easily melted when Tsuna opened his eyes, noiseless as the birth of the sun setting the morning sky alight. Gokudera scrambled to his feet. Yamamoto rushed from his post next to the door to stand at the other side of the bed, hope flaring, filling the silent room.

Tsuna’s eyes first focused on him, and then moved to Yamamoto’s taller, darker presence. He made an effort to return the relieved grin on Yamamoto’s face and Gokudera nearly sobbed in relief.

 

–

 

v.

“We must go to war.”

The Tenth did not look at him, his shoulders still slouched, weighed down by explanations of the incident. The bright lamp overhead rendered no service to his skin’s pallor, which was heightened instead by its cold whiteness. Gokudera steeled himself and continued.

“The Varia will act soon,” words flooded unbidden from his mouth once he began. “They didn’t swear obedience to you, Tenth, and these assassination attempts have tarnished Vongola’s name. It’s only a matter of time before they take matters into their own hand.”

Tsuna’s eyes stared unseeing at the length of the bed, at sheets equally stark white. The source of his reluctance was easy to guess. Gokudera admired his benevolence—people who knew exactly what sort of strength needed to maintain this benevolence in a world as unforgiving as theirs could not help but admire the Tenth—but he also knew that forgiveness, given one-sided without reciprocation, rarely ever worked.

“What do you think?” Tsuna finally spoke, looking at Yamamoto.

The reply came promptly. “Gokudera is right. These people won’t be discouraged by failures, only made impatient. They want to kill you and they won’t stop until you’re dead, Tsuna.”

Gokudera threw him a glare, but Yamamoto remained stone-faced, his voice steady. “Arturi is a Family with power to be reckoned with, and right now their whole force is concentrated for a single purpose only: revenge. I saw with my own eyes, these operations were the sort that took months of preparations. For all we know, there are still many plots waiting for you once you step out of this room.”

The Tenth shook his head slowly. “It still isn’t right. They do have a reason to desire my life.”

“No one could possibly know that the girl would shoot herself,” Gokudera argued, righteousness subduing the sudden unease stirred by Tsuna’s flinch. No one was at fault in the tragedy, but clearly the Head of Arturi Family disagreed. The root of the matter was only a girl, a quiet but hard-hearted girl who had fallen in love with a man so unlike any she had met before; a girl who had found her love unrequited, and there the matter would have ended if she had not taken her life in a fit of despair.

In there, Gokudera recognised the vice of his people, of his blood, the same weakness which had ruled over his father’s common sense at the sight of his mother. To love so passionately was a gift and curse both. He knew precisely how it felt, what sort of travails it entailed.

The Tenth looked at him and there was almost censure in his voice when he said, “How can you begrudge a grieving father?”

Neither of them moved to answer. Tsuna waited, an excuse to stall, his gaze challenging where there was none to meet his challenge. For the first time in his years of allegiance, Gokudera felt annoyance threatening to overpower his devoted patience. Surely the Tenth _knew_ , that his safety was no longer a concern of his own person only, but also that of thousands of other men and women who had put their faith in the Family. To risk them all for compassion didn’t sound as admirable now, and Gokudera would have said so if not for the door which had been opened so suddenly from the other side.

Yamamoto had his sword unsheathed in a blink of an eye, but quickly lowered the blade when he saw the source of the intrusion. Kyoko stood in the doorway with her eyes gleaming bright, a hand over her mouth. Then, as if a spell had been lifted with a small shake of her head, she moved briskly to his bedside and claimed Tsuna’s hand for her lips.

Gokudera noticed the look Tsuna had quickly thrown his way, and so did Yamamoto. Both complied and immediately left the room, but Gokudera lingered behind the closed door, occasionally glancing at the small window. The angle made it impossible for him to decipher their exchange, but the look on her face—and the Tenth’s, his smile crumpled, watery—was nearly as telling.

When Kyoko left, tears were still running down her face.

 

–

 

vi.

The Guardians were all assembled when Tsuna came home two days later, except one. By then Gokudera had been far too used to Hibari’s behaviour to trouble himself with a man unwilling to be troubled. A good Consigliere calculated wars, not minute battles.

“I will protect my Family,” the Tenth declared once they all had been called into the inner office. Gokudera let go of the breath he had been holding and nodded, both approval and acknowledgment.

It was with some surprise when he later discovered that the unease remained.

 

.

 

“Please explain.”

Kyoko’s voice was tight but calm enough, her eyes intense enough that he looked away in some measure of uneasiness. They sat in her small apartment, he with an excuse to arrange additional protection for her, she determined to have some answers, and a table with two cups of tea between them.

“He refused to say anything more,” she spoke again when he did not, louder but shakier. “Just that he didn’t want me involved. I know that he only tried to protect me, but...”

Her words trailed off, leaving only sounds drifting in from the open window to fill the silence. This was one of the times when Gokudera found himself itching for a cigarette and could not afford one. He used to think that what respect he had for Sasagawa Kyoko did not stem from who she was but what she was—the Tenth’s. Now he wondered if it had been proven the other way around.

“There will be a war,” he said at last.

“Because of what happened?”

His look was an answer enough. Kyoko looked down at her fingers which formed a perfect circle around the cup. “Am I being targeted?”

“We take every precaution.” Circumspection lent stiffness to his demeanour. The Tenth’s order was clear enough: she was to be spared from as many details as they could afford, now that the engagement had been terminated. “The Tenth doesn’t want anything bad happening to you,” he added.

“I know.” There was a flash of her smile, dim, mournful. “I love him too, but if he doesn’t want me–”

“You should know better than me how the Tenth feels,” Gokudera interrupted in her moment of indecision. “The fact is you’re not ready. _He_ doesn’t think that you’re ready, and he wants to get you away from it while it’s still possible.”

Kyoko was now looking at him with her wide, shrewd eyes. “But it’s too late, isn’t it?”

 _Damn right it is,_ Gokudera thought sourly. Vongola would have to protect Sasagawa Kyoko for the rest of her life. After the engagement, broken or not, there would be no end to the list of parties who would try their luck with Vongola by using her. The Tenth had many excellent qualities which distinguished him from other men, but sadly acting was not among them. One only had to look at him—and her—to see that she was _not_ nothing to him. The breaking of the engagement served no purpose other than easing Tsuna’s mind with the fact that he at least had done something to protect the woman he loved.

As if she could read his mind, Kyoko suddenly said, “Will it be easier for... everyone to protect me if I’m closer?”

There was that itch to smoke again, stronger this time. To fight it down, Gokudera splayed his hand on the table, behind his untouched cup. “Are you prepared for it?”

“If I must.”

“You can’t persuade the Tenth that way,” his tone was harsh, undercut by annoyance. _How little,_ he could not help but think, _she knows of him._ “The last thing he wants is to add to your burden. But being Vongola Decimo’s wife means coping up with a lot of things. One of the most important is that you will have to let others protect you, even at the cost of their own lives. You are more important than any of them, or several of them combined even, and you must accept it. You’ll have to live with it.”

Her smile had a touch of derision in it, so vicious that it startled him. “In other words, I must have an inflated sense of self.”

Gokudera would have scowled at the perceived taunt, but checked himself on time. “The Tenth protects his Family to the best of his ability,” he said stiffly. “But there are always times when something will go wrong, and we must be prepared for such times. If you can’t do it, then just say so.”

“You don’t think I’m ready.”

“I don’t think you ever will.” He was stepping over lines and boundaries, and Gokudera knew it with every spoken word. Still, he did not stop. “No one can really be ready for these things. The real question is whether you’ll break under the strain. In the reality of the Tenth’s world, you can only be one of two things: an asset or a liability. Which one will you be, that’s what you need to decide.”

She was silent for a long time, but her eyes did not stray from him. Gokudera returned the courtesy by holding her gaze, letting her know that to his eyes, they stood on an even ground now—and he must admit at least that much to himself.

“I want to protect him,” Kyoko finally said, quietly but firmly. “For whatever the sentiment is worth.”

“You’re the only one who can convince him that,” was Gokudera’s sole response.

Kyoko didn’t smile, but it was evident in her expression that she understood his need to stand neutral in the subject. So far, he had broken the Tenth’s explicit order not to involve her further. Beyond that, he couldn’t imagine the consequences.

Heaving a deep breath, she squared the slope her shoulders and laced her fingers together. They clutched each other with the same fierceness reflected in her eyes.

“I will.”

 

–

 

vii.

He took her to the Tenth.

However this action might be perceived—a weakness, a betrayal—Gokudera did what he thought right; for even above Vongola, Tsuna’s happiness mattered most to him. Such love which persisted over ten years of struggle was one worth fighting for. A real betrayal from his part would be to turn a blind eye at the extent of the Tenth’s suffering.

He left them and waited in the seclusion of his office, pleased but by no means relieved. It might change nothing. The Tenth might refuse to budge from his decision. What he did might worsen their relationship even further. There was no way to tell.

A pardon for his boldness was all he could ask for. Gokudera received two smiles instead, soon after the private meeting had ended: one from Kyoko when she stopped by at his office, and the other from the Tenth where he expected only reproof for his actions.

“Thank you, Hayato.”

Even with a war looming at the horizon, Gokudera couldn’t help but feel that he had finally done something right.

 

**_End_ **  



End file.
